Working my way around the south west coast of Ontario, Canada visiting with the Canada/USA border communities. All of the cities have bridges connecting to US cities. And each Canadian border community is separated by a body of water. From waterfront to waterfront, each side of the river looks at the other sides sky scrapers. They look so close.
Detroit from Windsor waterfront
In Windsor, Canada you look into the belly of Detroit. And what a big belly it is. The Detroit skyline is so dominant. It is shoulder to shoulder sky scrapers. The tallest is the glass tower with the letters of GM slapped on the side. Detroit is a car town as we all know but in case you missed it GM made sure you knew by having the biggest and tallest building staring at Windsor.
Windsor is well documented as a commercial, industrial and border city. But hats off to them for making the most out of what they have to work with. Yes, there are factories in Windsor but they have also created some parks, wetlands, beaches. Some of which I visited like Coventry Gardens, Mic-Mac Park, Ojibway Nature Park, Sandpoint Beach and Ojibway Provincial Park.
However the waterfront of Windsor shows the most effort in creating green space. It is all park and trail. I visited the waterfront twice and on both visits is was busy with bikes, walkers, joggers and roller bladders. It seems the waterfront is THE local strip for exercise and hanging out.
The one section of the waterfront path which I particularly enjoyed was the Odette Sculpture Gardens. It is a 4-5 kilometre stretch of pathway decorated with unique art sculptures from locals and abroad. There were some hokey ones but most of the art was well done, interesting and integrated with the landscape. Some art was structural while others were images.
In the company of penguins
The penguin art display caught my eye first. I have never seen a real one. By real I mean living in its true habitat – not the shedding, sick looking penguins often seen drugged up in zoos. I have seen too many of those sad penguins and other wildlife living in zoos that I no longer visit them.
These sculptured penguins were situated around a small fountain. It would of been easy to miss them as they blended in with the environment. Lucky me, they do not run away from me like most birds do when I wander up close for a picture. These ones were very photogenic.
The aliens sculptures made me laugh. Along the waterfront walk is these two aliens running in the grass with their hands up in the air. From afar they look real except they lacked color. I am sure I am not the first one to take a picture pretending that the aliens are catching me. I won’t be the last either. (Main BLOG Photo).
One image that will haunt me forever about Windsor is the invasion. As soon as the sun went down in Windsor, the flying bugs came out to play. Not sure what they were, maybe flying ants. But they were dumb. They would crash into the side of my trailer, so much so, it sounded like rain. And when I got up to go to the bathroom at night the ground was covered in them. Every step I took was followed by a crunching sound.